


Rebirth (with a cost)

by ilyena_sylph



Category: The Forbidden Game - L. J. Smith
Genre: Magic, Shadow Men, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:13:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Jenny's protection kept Julian's spirit "whole"? </p><p>What if he started trying to find his way back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebirth (with a cost)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamreality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamreality/gifts).



In the space between the worlds, let alone the space between life and death, a single (rejected, outcast, unbodied, unmade) spirit -- one not even a human spirit -- should have been destroyed in mere moments. The forces that kept all the worlds spinning should have taken hold of that lost 'self' and turned it back into a part of the realms in a single instant... but this spirit had a sorceress's will and dreams wrapped around it, and so it drifted, all unknowing, in that endless space. 

Drifted and spun through the space, as the sorceress' dreams and wishes tried to send it to Alfheim (sometimes called Tir na nOg, sometimes called the Summerlands) where it would be as sun-drenched as she had promised. Untrained as she was, though, her will was not strong enough to breach the wall around that world. It must be said, however, that her wish did try. Her need to protect that spirit, to dream him into somewhere better flung itself again and again against Alfheim's protections... but to no avail, and so it slipped back towards Midgard, towards Earth, towards her home and the sun there. 

As it drifted closer to Midgard and all of the people there (all of their dreams and nightmares, longings and hates), the spirit began, somewhat, to 'wake', if that was the right word. 

To wake -- and be startled at existing at all, more startled at 'waking', and the most startled yet at realizing that his beloved's will had been protecting him -- and to pay attention to the currents of power (conscious and unconscious alike) that Midgard was always awash in, to someone like him. 

Human thoughts and dreams and fears... the only food he had ever needed, before. 

Now, though, they did not pour into him, only around him, sparkling feathery brushes or blazing flares of emotions that did nothing for or to him but bring him more alert.

Finally truly awake, Julian spent a while contemplating his situation, curled inside the shield that was his Jenny's -- no, she was her own Jenny, and more than he had ever dreamed -- loving will. Not alive, but not dead, not in his elders' clutches nor the 'somewhere bright' she had promised to dream him to... well, now what did he do? 

He wanted to live. 

He wanted to see her again. 

So... how?

Magic, of course, but... what kind? 

His name had been cut from the Runestave, the power of his name destroyed by the knife that had cut through it (liquid diamond falling to Niflheim's ground)... and there was no way to replace his name. The Runestave was their very life -- 

\-- wait. 

No. His life was obviously not solely in the staff, he was here, now. Why? 

An answer floated up from the depths of his memories. Ankhsenamun. Why her?

...Egypt, three millennia ago, her name shining in gold within a _shen_ ring. Her _name_. 

_Oh_. 

'Nothing really dies as long as it's not forgotten.' 

He'd told more truth than he knew, it seemed. And he knew both his name, and how to write it. In runes, or hieroglyphs, or cuneiform, or -- no, not modern letters, they would need too much space. But there were several ways he could be written and be himself. ...or at least, almost himself. 

Now he had the start of a plan. What he didn't have were hands, let alone a knife or any materials that could hold something as powerful as his name. Which meant he needed someone to write it. 

No. Not simply write it. Carve it, or forge it. Craft it in something strong enough to hold his name. 

Who? 

Not Jenny. She wouldn't.

But someone magical. Someone like that little psychic they'd used to talk to Jenny with. Someone that could hear him whispering. Yes. 

Julian steadied himself, as much as he could with no hands or breath or body, and began listening to the torrent of humanity he was drifting in. 

+++

It took a little while before he found one. Her thoughts were full of joy and light, hopeful belief that almost pained him to hear, to listen to... but along with the hope there was power. Such power. 

'Help me', he whispered into her dreams. 'Help me... please.' 

The plea was like acid on the tongue he did not have, but it... 'Couldn't you have just asked' echoed in his mind, Jenny's confusion and frustration (the hurt), and... he didn't want to try to force this. So he asked. Night after night, he whispered, putting the shape of his name into the back of her mind. Over and over again, he placed it in her mind, hoping. Then one night she came awake all at once as he started to whisper, and a thought came back to him, clear as the air, bright as noontime sun. 'How?'

Euphoric, delighted, he answered her in a rush, 'Make this!' and the stronger image of his rune, his name, his life. 

Fear poured from her, then, but a determination, too, and for a moment, he heard 'Yes.'

Relief surged in him, relief and joy, and he tried to hold on to her mind, to tell her it must be something strong, something powerful, not mere paper... but he had no idea if she understood or not. Communicating like this, even when she had found the way to think back to him, was never a certain thing. 

+++

A wave of pain struck him, agonizing and impossible, almost like talons sinking into the chest he no longer had, and, baffled, he clung to his sense of self with all his will. 

What was this? An attack? Had his elders realized that he still Was, and moved to UnMake him again? 

Another rip, another bolt of agony, and suddenly he understood. 

She was writing his name. 

Carving the first lines of it into... something? 

It hurt. 

It hurt worse, far worse, than dying had, and he was alone. 

Jenny. Jenny was worth this pain. Worth anything. 

A third rip, like he was being torn out of reality itself, and he fell into blackness again.

+++

This time, he woke up coughing and aching... but he had a body. 

It felt feeble, frail, almost mortal... but it _was_ a body. He took another breath, struggling to breathe instead of cough, and tried to open his eyes. Light stabbed into them, blazing and agonizing, and he shut them again. 

"Oh," a woman's voice said, "you -- you're really real. You -- Hello?" 

She was so loud that it hurt his ears, though the tone sounded like barely a whisper. 

"Hello," he answered -- or tried to, at least. In his own ears, it sounded more like a croak with an 'o' at the end, like an owl with a bad cold. 

She laughed, and he tried to get his hands up, wanting to cover his ears against the pain of it. He mostly succeeded, as he curled on one side, and he heard her make a soft, worried noise. "You... you're in pain," and that he knew was a whisper, no matter what it sounded like. "How do I help?" 

Humans. 

He would never understand them. 

He carefully slitted one eye open, breaking the light with his lashes, trying to become used to it, even as he took his hand from one ear and put a single fingertip against his mouth. 

She didn't say anything, but he heard quiet movement, and then something both soft and heavy touched him, was draped from his feet to his neck. It smelled like a detergent, and like heat, and... it was a coat? 

It was, in fact, a coat, and it was warm, and he was Julian. And the agonizing light in his eyes was only a... flashlight, Jenny would call it. Lying next to him. That, and light coming in a window. Street lamps, he thought, from his looks out Jenny's windows. So, it was night. 

He lay still for a while, pain making his breath come in shakey, before he tried his voice again. "Hello?"

"Hi," a her low voice answered, fuzzy and soft, still a low whisper. "You with me, now?" 

"Possibly?" he answered, opening his other eye to look and see what his second savior looked like, trying to sit up. 

"Oh, be careful," she murmured, still low, and then there were gentle hands under his shoulders. Gentle hands but hard, with the tips of nails just barely at the ends of her fingertips. He couldn't see her like this, with her body apparently behind him, and he turned his head to look. 

Compared to Jenny, she didn't look like much. Wavy hair, strands of it glinting brown in the light, and skin that looked like it was probably tanned. Pale eyes, a blue maybe? Not Jenny's forest green. A mouth that was used to smiling, if his eyes told him right, and there was a lightness to the sense of her that matched that bubbling hope he'd felt in her thoughts. "Thank you." 

"You, ah -- I'm not actually sure you're welcome, and I'm entirely sure that I want to have screaming hysterics, but I couldn't just run away and abandon you, since I think you're my fault." She had an interesting voice, still, if a very human one. There was fear in it, fear brushing over him, and the same determination he'd sensed in her when he'd sought someone to help him.

"Not," he replied, protesting as he frowned at her, "your fault." 

"I'm sorry," no she wasn't, that was sarcasm, biting and entertaining, and despite himself he smiled as she went right on, "the _suddenly appearing body_ in the art studio I'm not even supposed to be using _somehow_ isn't my fa -- " 

Too loud, suddenly _too_ loud as her stress came out in her voice, and she must have seen it in his face, because she went quiet in between the syllables, clicking her jaw shut for a moment. 

"My name is Julian," he told her, as soft as he wished she would speak, "and I am my own fault. You just gave me a way back." 

"Back? From what?" 

"Death," he answered... and the human woman made a strangled noise and fell backwards. Without her support, so did he, and he landed half on her. He'd only fallen a few inches, but it felt like entire feet, from how much the impact hurt. 

And she... she wasn't speaking, or sitting up, or doing anything. He was fairly sure, even feeling as feeble as he did, that she had fainted. Well that was useless. He made a quietly frustrated noise -- deeply enjoying the ability _to_ make noises -- and pushed himself away from her, wrapping up in the coat she had draped over his body. He would wait, and breathe, and when she came awake again, perhaps they could talk. 

+++

It took surprisingly little time for his body to start behaving itself, for his eyes to see as well in the night as they ever had, for his legs to feel strong enough to take his weight, and he stood. The coat was easy to pull around himself. More confusing was the... toweling of some kind, he thought, that had been draped over his hips underneath of it. 

Now on his feet, he moved through the open space, the woman still unconscious on the floor near where he had, apparently, fallen back into or onto Midgard. Something in this open room with tables pulled at him, and he moved towards it, crouching down to look into the window in its front. 

There, inside, surrounded by faintly glowing coils (electricity, heat), lay his name. It, too, glowed still, heated through. 

Firing. This was some kind of modern kiln, and the witch behind him had cast his name in clay. 

Oh, brilliant! he thought, approving. Clay was strong, and durable. It would last for the time until he could make his way back to the Runestave and be born in truth. But at this present moment there was the not-so-minor trouble of gaining hold of his name. If he exposed it to cold immediately, it would shatter -- and likely take him with it again. If he waited... if he waited, she would wake, and probably have many questions, and... he did not wish to answer them. 

She had helped him, and he would give her any single gift she wished (that he could still provide), but he did not, terribly, want to talk to her. He wasn't entirely certain if that was _because_ he owed her, or despite it. Possibly some of both. 

Which meant he needed to get his hands onto his name quickly. 

Did he still have his magic? 

If so, he could pull the heat away. 

For long moments, he was afraid to try. If he tried and magic did not answer -- what would that make him? 

Human? 

The thought was revolting, but so was the idea of staying trapped, of letting his fear rule him. 

He took a slow breath, two, and set his will. There was the entire atmosphere outside this room, it could absorb all of this heat within the kiln easily. He wrote the spell he needed in his mind, slowly, cautiously, speaking to the Fire within the kiln and the Air without -- and his heart skipped several beats as he felt the world begin to respond, the elements listening... and he cast it. Subtle magics had never been his best... but it worked. 

Within a few minutes, the glow in the kiln was fading, and in a few minutes, he could open the door. 

His name was in his hands. Hot, probably too hot, but he didn't care. He had his name. 

And his magic. 

With those, he could go to Jenny. 

+++ 

Or could, if... something... hadn't pushed at him about the girl. 

She might not be safe here. And that would be poor repayment for the gift she had given him. (Poor repayment of his debt to her.) He needed to ensure that she would be safe. 

He stripped off the coat and made clothing appear on his body, common, un-adorned garb but enough -- the simple act drained him more than he wanted, left him leaning weak against the nearest table for a long moment, had taken more than the air and fire spell had -- and tucked his name away into a pocket, then put the coat back on. 

He went back towards her, his name heavy against his thigh, and dropped down on one knee. Down and close to her, he reached out and shook her shoulder slightly. Now if she would only wake and go, before there was anything else between them. (Before she knew the power she could hold over him, if she wished.)

Her eyes opened along with a grumbling noise in her throat -- and then only his hand clapped over her mouth kept her from screaming loudly enough to be heard entire leagues away. "Shh," he told her, "you're all right. It's all right, but you need to go home now." 

Her eyes sparked at him in the dim light, and she -- ow! 

She'd _bitten_ him. He hissed, the Creeper's furious noise escaping his lips, and she went as still as a mouse, even her breath stopping. That was much better.

No, no it wasn't. She had brought him back into this world, he should do better than terrifying her. "It is all right," he told her again, and took his hand away from her mouth. "You've done what I needed, and should go home now." 

She was silent for several long moments, barely breathing again, and then. "You're wearing my coat. Also, I was happier when I thought you were a hallucination." 

"Well," he answered, a little sharp, "I'm not. Come now, this can't be your home. It looks more like part of a school." 

"It is, it's the art studio. What _are_ you?" 

He paused, blinking at her once. "I'm not entirely certain, now, and what I was doesn't matter." 

"If I just summoned a demon from the three months of dreams of a shape in my head, it matters!" 

"I am not a demon," he replied, and was startled when she snorted at him.

"Oh, yes, and a demon would admit what it was?" 

"Well then, you're rather stuck, aren't you?" he asked, just as edged as her question had been, though really, he rather enjoyed that sharp response. There might be something to this one. "In any case. You're right about the coat, here." 

She'd started to say something, to protest or -- 

"Where did you get clothes? They even fit." 

"Magic," he answered, blinking at her, "where else?" 

"But magic doesn't -- " she cut herself off, apparently realizing that she sounded ridiculous, and glared at him. "Magic has never done anything like that for me." 

"Well, no. You're human. I'm... not." He breathed out a sigh and picked up her flashlight. "We should discuss this somewhere else." 

"I've still got a project in the -- " 

She stopped talking as he held his name up between them in two fingers, smiling at her. "No you don't." 

"How did y -- no, never mind. I'm oddly certain that you're just going to say 'magic' again, and I have this feeling that I won't actually manage to punch you if I try it, so I'd rather not be tempted." 

That might be one of the most intelligent things he'd ever heard a human say, and he smiled at her, pleasant and amused. "Wise of you. So?" 

"...let's definitely get out of here, yes." 

+++

Her name, Julian discovered, was Amanda. He'd already known her tongue was as sharp as Audrey's, and if the comment about punching was any clue, she was a bit like Jenny's Dierdre, as well. Not that it mattered, he wasn't staying, but that did amuse him more than a little. 

She had locked the building up behind her, which he thought was a little interesting, and she seemed to know exactly where she was going, so he followed. That turned out to be a park, and a particular bench in said park. She hadn't spoken along the way, not after her agreement to leave, and when she did speak again, he was surprised at the words. 

"Why me?" 

"What?" What kind of a question was that?

"Why me? I mean. You obviously weren't surprised to see _me_." 

He blinked at her once, thinking, and then answered without bothering to lie. "You could hear me, and then you listened." 

Amanda looked like she wanted to hit him -- or at least, if he had learned anything about what that look meant from Dierdre, she did -- but did not swing. Sensible of her. "...you're why I kept having the same dream over and over again, for months? You _put_ that in my _head_?!" 

"....ah, yes?" He shrugged his shoulders slightly, his eyes watching her. "As I said, you listened. And I... thank you. I owe you a boon." 

The words were unfamiliar and difficult, but they were the right thing to say, he was almost certain of that. (The debt would follow him, else.) She stared at him, silent for long slow moments, her pale eyes very blank, then she nodded. "I think you do, yes. You said I brought you back from death." 

"You did," he agreed, and nodded as her eyes rounded again, widening as her fear brushed over him again. 

"That... is frankly terrifying. Okay. I know what I want. I want you to teach me what you are, why I could -- and how to keep from ever doing _anything like that_ again!" 

....damn. She really **was** clever -- and now he was caught by his admission of the debt, trapped as thoroughly as he ever had been. Even the old man hadn't trapped him so thoroughly as _this_. 

He should have just disappeared while he had the chance, and left her to her own fate, damn it. (Jenny would have been incredibly disappointed in him if he had.) 

"As you would have it, then. So I shall," he replied, grateful that the price was as low as that. It could have been more. Much more.

He couldn't tell if it was pleasure or apprehension that wrote itself across her features for a few moments, but whichever it was, it settled into a firm resolve. "Good. And now I'm finally realizing that I'm starving, so come on, there's an all-night diner a couple of blocks away. I'll buy." 

He pulled up a laugh from somewhere, knowing it was even in his eyes, and flicked a look at her. "That's good, because I'd have to create the money if you expected me to." 

"Create... never mind. Once we've eaten, okay?"

"Yes." 

+++

Human food was... interesting, he decided, taking careful bites from the plate the waitress -- Trisha -- had brought for him at Amanda's suggestion. 

She, on the other hand, was being nothing like delicate about her own plate. The meal was disappearing at a prodigious rate, almost as quick as the Lurker would have devoured something it had brought down. She was a great deal neater, which was pleasant, no matter how much he missed each of his old hunting partners. 

"Will you want anything for the next little while?" he asked, and once she shook her head, he dipped his fingers into the glass of water, using it to sketch out runes long lost to human eyes and thoughts, warding off others and binding their words to stay close to them. 

As the spell fell into place, her eyes darted around, a shudder running down her back. "...you did something." 

"Yes," he agreed, "I did. None of the others will approach, now, or hear what we say." 

"How -- and don't just say magic. What _kind_ of magic?!" 

"At least you know there's more than one," Julian replied, flashing a quick smile at her as her shoulders rolled back, her jaw setting. He knew that indignant look, and it amused him a little. "Runic magic... well, basically." 

"Basically?" 

"Oh, there are a good few more than you humans remember," he answered, shrugging one shoulder at her, uncaring of the particulars. "The Futhark aren't a bad place to start, but they're not all of them. I used a few of the others." 

"The -- " she frowned at him and took a breath, shaking her head slightly. "Okay. So. Runic magic works, but there's more of it than people think. Can we go back to that 'you humans' thing? You said you weren't a demon." 

jenny had thought of him as a demon, sometimes, he knew. He'd been able to hear that, but he wasn't _from_ those myths. "I'm not. Certainly not a Christian demon, I never was that. But now... now I'm not entirely certain _what_ I am, since you brought me back."

"All right, whatever, then what _were_ you, before?" 

His lips skinned back from his teeth at her before he thought better of it, and he pushed one hand through his hair, buying himself a moment, as she looked anywhere but at him. "I was a Shadow Man. Youngest of them, most powerful... then." 

"And a Shadow Man is what when it's at home?" Amanda asked, and for a moment all he wanted to do was lash out at her, to strike her with the magic still under his skin -- but he had agreed to her price, her bargain. So he tightened his jaw for a moment, breathing in and out...

...and she flinched back from his gaze, the color draining out of her face until it was as pale as the dishes they had been eating from. Her fear washed along his senses, his very self, stronger than before, deeper, and he could feel himself steadying, getting stronger. It wasn't the same as it had been before, he couldn't see everything she was afraid of, couldn't simply devour the fear... but it did, it seemed, still feed him. 

And he was so very annoyed with her that he didn't look away. If she wanted to know what they were, she could experience the edges of it! He held her eyes for a few more moments (before he realized that he was doing the kind of thing Jenny would be upset at him for), then blinked once, slowly, and flashed a slow, lazy smile. "That. 

"...well. Sort of." 

She swallowed a few times, and he thought one of her fists was clenching in her lap, but she shot a nasty look at him -- if somewhat sideways and without quite meeting his eyes. "And you said you weren't a demon." 

"I'm not," he retorted, "I have nothing to do with the human Triune God, and I certainly wasn't cast out of some Heaven. Though we did once take the... persona? appearance? of those demons, if that was what would serve us best." 

Amanda just stared at him -- at his smile, he thought, which was deeply amused -- for several long moments, before she slowly shook her head. "Okay," she admitted slowly, "you might actually have a point there. 

"But that doesn't tell me what you _are_ , or how I heard you, or really anything useful, which --" 

"Is not what your price was," Julian agreed, hearing the sour note in his own voice a little too late to do anything about it. He hummed to himself for a moment, glancing away from her, considering how best to explain them. More thoroughly than he had to Jenny, even, which set his back teeth hard against each other, made his own hand flex against his thigh. 

He'd only told Jenny little bits and pieces. Only given her the bits she couldn't reach for herself. With this one, this little mortal witch that he owed... he had to actually explain. "I was the youngest, but I remember Egypt under the Heretic Pharaoh and his court -- I was very young, too young even to play -- if that tells you anything about how long we exist. 

"The Eldest... remembers the time before pottery, before metals, before even stone lamps. The time when humans had only just begun to exist, clinging to fire to protect them from the things in the night. I think the Eldest was something like that, first... but then a human carved a symbol into being. It may have been a carving _against_ evil, but the carver failed, and named the Eldest into reality. But not... quite... this reality. Into the world next door to this one, the Shadow World, whatever name you want to give it. 

"The one that's stuck most strongly, these last several centuries, is 'Niflheim'." 

She looked captivated, ensorcelled, enraptured by his words, as caught as Jenny had, early on, and he almost enjoyed it on her, too. Not the way he had with Jenny, but nothing, no-one else could be Jenny. She didn't say anything for a moment when he stopped talking, just lifting her hand, and slowly she did say, "But... Viking culture isn't -- that's _new_ , compared to what you said, way younger than Tut's father, younger than you, why -- " 

"Oh," he murmured, "you're clever, aren't you?" 

She pushed a hand through her hair, smiling at him -- it looked like the smile was despite herself, actually -- as she said, "I like to think so. But _why_ Niflheim, and why did your name look so much like a rune?" 

"Because you affect us," he answered, "as much as we affect you. And the migrating Germanic folk tapped into a great deal of ancient magic with their runes, enough to change how we thought of ourselves a little, even. They definitely affected the Runestave. That would be the thing all of the rest of us are written on. It's been many things, over the long ages. A slab of carved stone, a cuneiform tablet, a piece of turtle shell..." 

"Orac --oh, Lady bless, I need a _drink_ ," Amanda protested, shaking her head, both of her hands coming up to rub at her temples. 

He laughed for a moment, a ripple of sound that he meant to pour over her ears, and she made a face at him, shaking her head again. "Don't -- don't -- every comparative religions teacher I have ever had is having paroxysms of joy, and every devout theist is having hysterics for exactly the same reason, and none of them know why." 

That thought was amusing and he grinned at her quick and sharp. "We're all of the Things in the night," he agreed, "but you were asking why the Runestave. It's --" 

"Wait, wait let me _think_ ," she protested, cutting over him, and his surprise meant that she did get a few seconds to think without his own explanation. "Germanic and Scandinavian myth held on for _ages_ , way past when most of Europe was converting to Christianity, hell there are bits of it still running around, not just the Asatru revival either, we know those stories today... is that why?" 

He eyed her for several long moments, then nodded, once. "A large part of, in any case. They **believed** \-- believe, even -- in us." 

She picked up her glass of water and drained half of it, staring over the lip at him before she put it back down. "...right, then. That.

"Okay. I think that's about all of your history I've got any interest in. But how do I keep the rest of you _out of my head_?" 

"Build yourself a ward," he answered, and grinned to himself as she stared at him. He didn't really enjoy giving up this much, he would take her moments of shock and frustrated exasperation as some of his own back

"That's almost as helpful," she said, her voice acidic as Audrey's could be, "as 'I'm a Shadow Man'. What _kind_ of ward?" 

"Mmm..." he shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know what you practice, but something that you firmly believe will have more effect than anything I can tell you. Though, for something immediate, I would start with Eihwaz and Algiz, possibly Othala. And learn to close your mind like some of the practitioners of Asian mental disciplines can." 

She pulled a pen from somewhere and wrote on the back of her hand, quick notes, muttering to herself, something that involved 'realer than I wanted' and 'mother protect me'. Or possibly 'Mother protect me', not that he particularly cared. 

"And one more thing." 

"...what's that?" 

"Don't make promises you can't or won't keep... it gets the elders' attention." 

Her throat clicked when she swallowed, her eyes so full of pupil that he couldn't tell the color any more. "...right, then. Okay. So... what are you going to do, now that you're... not dead any more?" 

"Go to -- " //Jenny// "--a friend. And hope she's still forgiven me." As well as hope some other things. Like that Tommy wasn't part of her life anymore. Like that he had a chance, this time, if he went and asked. 

"For -- " She cut herself off, and he wasn't entirely certain why. He didn't think he'd been glaring at her this time. "...never mind," she said, as though she'd made a decision and was going to stick to it no matter what. "Not relevant, not my business, and not part of our bargain. 

"I can keep from doing something like... what I did with you... if I figure out setting wards and guarding my mind?" 

"Yes. Not that there should be anyone else that would need it, but. Yes." 

"Okay, then. Good. Now. I'm exhausted, and I want my books, and I don't think there's anything else we can do for each other. Yes, no?" 

"I very much doubt it," he agreed, relief coiling along his spine and surging in his chest. She was going to release him this easily? 

"Great. Then -- and please don't take this the wrong way -- I really hope I never see you again, gorgeous. You're a little too much magic for me." 

He laughed, flashing a brighter, truer smile at her, and broke the spell around them, then pushed away from the table. 

Outside, he saw, the sun was just beginning to come up. 

A glorious, cloudy start of a sunrise, all brilliant bolts of color and beams of light, just as he truly started towards Jenny? 

He liked that. With any luck, it was a sign that things would go well.


End file.
